This invention is related in general to processing of digital information and more specifically to the sending, delivery, analysis and other processing of electronic mail (email) messages.
Although email has become immensely popular and is a huge benefit for many users, today's email systems are also plagued by increasing numbers of unwanted mail, referred to as “spam.” Spam email has reached such large proportions with respect to desired email that systems are now sought to defeat the sending and delivery of spam. Typically email is transferred over networks such as home or small-area networks, local-area networks (LANs), wide-area networks (WANs) and, ultimately, global networks such as the Internet. Although email represents the most popular general information exchange mechanism, the problem of unwanted information can include any type of information transfer over a digital network such as instant messaging, chat, newsgroups, file transfers, etc.
Spam is often difficult to detect because, in a broad sense, it is merely information that a recipient does not want. The analysis of an email message can attempt to determine the contents and meaning of a message, quantity of a message (i.e., whether it is a “bulk” message), sender, recipient, delivery path, and other characteristics in order to classify a message as spam. However, spam senders, or “spammers,” are aware of such techniques and use countermeasures such as automatic modification of messages, varying the time or origin of bulk email transmissions, disguising email characteristics, etc. The battle between spam senders and spam blockers has reached very sophisticated levels and shows no signs of stopping.
Other practices of spammers that can be annoying to a recipient include obtaining information about the recipient for later use in sales or commerce. For example, sellers often desire any type of information on a potential customer such as whether an email address is valid, the likes/dislikes of the customer, etc. On the other hand, users desire to keep such information confidential or otherwise restricted.
Thus, it is desirable to provide features for email analysis and handling, and information processing in general, to either thwart or assist senders and/or recipients on email systems and other information exchange systems and to analyze and obtain information about user's of such systems.